XXV.

To feast on feathers, and on vain array

The aged priest goes on each Sabbath morn,

But shakes not sorrow under his gray hair;

The solemn clerk goes lavender'd and shorn

Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair;—

And ancient lips that pucker'd up in scorn,

Go smoothly breathing to the house of pray'r;

And in the garden-plot, from day to day,

The lily blooms its long white life away.